Molinaro: Staten Island subway to Brooklyn would have been nice

View full sizeCourtesy of Edward ReedBorough President James Molinaro, shown here with Mayor Bloomberg Tuesday, wishes the machine in the rear was to be used for boring a subway tunnel to Brooklyn.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Islanders are still dreaming of a subway to Brooklyn. For now, we should keep dreaming.

Amid the pomp and circumstance that accompanied Tuesday's dedication of a $250 million water tunnel connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn, Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro said he wished another kind of tunnel was being built.

"I'm a little sad it's not a subway tunnel, but
that's OK," Molinaro told the crowd as he was introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to a report by capitalnewyork.com. Before he yielded the microphone back to the mayor, he added, tongue in cheek: "I was told that they were
going to be boring for a train from Staten Island to Brooklyn. But I found out this morning, it's not, it's
just for water."

Construction of $250 million Staten Island water tunnel is announcedA new $250 million water tunnel construction project on the North Shore waterfront will boost economic development, support the shipping industry and increase drinking water reliability, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Port Authority's executive director, announced this morning.

Today's report blasting the quality of the Molinari-class Staten Island
ferries has again made some borough residents wish for an easier mass-transit
option that can deliver them to and from Manhattan, via Brooklyn. Bloomberg mentioned that a subway tunnel linking the Island and Brooklyn was started and then aborted nearly a century ago, but offered no indication that new construction is on his radar.

When the Advance explored the subway issue last fall, our report noted that "the multibillion-dollar cost appears to have scared any transportation officials away from committing funds to revisit the project."

We surveyed 104 Staten Islanders in person, at points around the borough, and found that 70 percent support the idea. It was an unscientific poll that included 50 mass transit riders and 15-20 Islanders at separate points on the North Shore, Mid-Island and South Shore. Our web poll drew more than 500 responses and yielded a nearly identical response: 73 percent said "Yes! It's a necessary means of transportation," while 27 percent said "No! It's too expensive."